United States Design Report 2019-2021

The United States’ fourth national action planAction plans are at the core of a government’s participation in OGP. They are the product of a co-creation process in which government and civil society jointly develop commitments to open governmen... contains commitments of broad interest to the American public. However, almost half of the commitments are recycled from pre-existing, ongoing government programs and, as written, do not signal significant changes in government practice. The U.S. should reengage and deepen trust with stakeholders by designing and implementing a clear, well-publicized, and well-documented co-creation processCollaboration between government, civil society and other stakeholders (e.g., citizens, academics, private sector) is at the heart of the OGP process. Participating governments must ensure that a dive... where civil society has greater buy-in. Future commitments should respond to national priorities with significant, measurable, and specific milestones.

The Open Government PartnershipThe Open Government Partnership (OGP) is a multi-stakeholder initiative focused on improving government transparency, ensuring opportunities for citizen participation in public matters, and strengthen... More (OGP) is a global partnership that brings together government reformers and civil society leaders to create action plans that make governments more inclusive, responsive, and accountable. The Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM)The Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) is OGP’s accountability arm and the main means of tracking progress in participating countries. The IRM provides independent, evidence-based, and objective ... monitors all action plans to ensure governments follow through on commitments. The United States joined OGP in 2011. Since, the United States has implemented three action plans. This report evaluates the design of the United States’ fourth action plan.

General overview of action plan

The United States’ fourth national action plan (NAP4) was published during heightened tension between civil society and the federal government due to the former’s concerns of diminishing open government in the U.S. This tension was pervasive during the NAP4 co-creation process and in the run-up to the action plan’s release, which was itself delayed for two years. In light of this, some civil society stakeholders who participated in prior co-creation processes declined to do so for NAP4. Others who did participate expressed concerns surrounding limited opportunities for engagement throughout the co-creation process, as all government-led, in-person engagement efforts were held entirely in Washington, DC. Despite these concerns, the action plan itself, which includes eight commitments, draws substantially from civil society input solicited during the co-creation process: half of all commitments directly align with comments submitted by stakeholders.

While the action plan has no overarching theme, several commitments address timely issues of broad concern for the American public, including leveraging data to reduce the ongoing opioid crisis and improving transparencyAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, transparency occurs when “government-held information (including on activities and decisions) is open, comprehensive, timely, freely available to the pub... More within the intelligence community. With respect to the OGP values, the majority of commitments focus primarily on improving public access to information, ranging from broadening access to federally-funded research to streamlining procedures and information availability for individuals seeking federal assistance. By contrast, the action plan places limited emphasis on civic participation and public accountabilityAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, public accountability occurs when ”rules, regulations, and mechanisms in place call upon government actors to justify their actions, act upon criticisms ... More, echoing civil society concerns during the co-creation process. While the action plan’s release is laudable given the extensive delays during its development, it is comprised primarily of commitments with limited potential impact—many of which derive directly from open government initiatives that were already underway prior to the action plan’s release—and does not address the majority of recommendations proposed by the IRM during the previous action plan cycle.

Table 2. Noteworthy commitments

Recommendations

The IRM recommendations aim to inform the development of the next action plan and guide implementation of the current action plan. Please refer to Section V: General Recommendations for more details on each of the below recommendations.

Table 3. Five KEY IRM recommendations